About the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit

The NPDA collects information on the care and diabetes outcomes of all children and young people receiving care from paediatric diabetes teams in England and Wales, and reports an annual core dataset.

The sole aim is to provide information that leads to an improved quality of care for those children and young people living with diabetes. In addition to our core annual data collection and reporting, we deliver national patient and parent reported experience measures (PREMS), and investigate specific aspects of care and service delivery through spotlight audits.

Background

The NPDA is an audit of the care processes received and outcomes achieved by all children and young people attending paediatric diabetes units in England and Wales.

It is funded by the Department of Health through the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) and is currently commissioned until 2025.

RCPCH has reinvigorated the paediatric component of the high profile National Diabetes Audit, introducing a number of innovations and efficiencies. These include measures of patient experience and the use of inventive approaches to data collection, which minimise the burden on clinicians.

The RCPCH's Clinical Standards & Quality Improvement team delivers the audit. The audit's Clinical Lead is Dr Justin Warner, Consultant Paediatrician. Local clinical leads support the audit across the country.

The audit is counselled by a Project Board and Methodology & Dataset Working Group, who meet quarterly at the RCPCH. You can download the terms of reference for both below.

Aims and priorities

  • Build on and improve the previous joint adult and paediatric audit
  • Collect a clinically meaningful dataset
  • Engage clinicians, patients and parents
  • Improve awareness of NPDA findings and maximise their use to drive national policy
  • Develop the use of NPDA data in local and national quality improvements
  • Use a regional network approach to data collection
  • Capture patients' experiences
  • Collaborate with the suppliers of the adult audit to ensure information around transition to adult care is captured
  • Report at timely and regular intervals
  • Develop user-friendly tools to interrogate the dataset
  • Support centres wishing to develop local action plans to improve diabetes care
  • Maximise the use and availability of data for research

Our quality improvement plan and supporting driver diagram are available to download below

UPCARE tool

The Understanding Practice in Clinical Audit and Registries (UPCARE) tool is a protocol for audits and registries. It has been designed to provide a “one-stop” summary of the key information about how clinical audits and registries have been designed and carried out. It is designed help users of audit/registry data and audit/registry participants understand the methods, evaluate the quality and robustness of the data, and find information and data that is most relevant to them.

Our UPCARE information at both workstream-level and programme-level respectively are available to download below.

Contact the NPDA team

Email: npda@rcpch.ac.uk

Tel: 020 7092 6167 or 020 7092 6137